Prodigal Son: The Beginning

Part Six:

    After a great deal of work in matching up schedules, Brad and I were finally able to sit down and get the ball rolling on his first foray into roleplaying, and my first attempt at running a game in about five years.  Being Brad’s first try, I attempted, however haltingly, to give him a few of the basics.  Certain terms that will become useful.  PC means player character.  NPC is non-player character (all characters not controlled by a player).   D is short for dice.  In the gaming terms, 3D6, for example, means three six sided dice.  2D10 would be two ten sided dice.  And we went over the mechanics of Call of Cthulhu.  How to roll for percentiles, what various numbers and various statistics mean, etc.

    It being my first time teaching a new player in about twenty years, not to mention my recent extended hiatus, I was perhaps less collected than I had intended.  However, Brad picked things up quickly.  We didn’t do any serous game play, but I put him through a couple brief encounters so he could see how rolling dice worked for the game, and what sort of things one does as a player.

    The story opened simple enough.  His name is Paul “Paulie” Connors.  He’s a hand on a tramp steamer, crossing the Atlantic on a trip from Spain.  Destination, the storied town of Innsmouth.  Cargo, unknown.  The year is 1927.  After taking care of some engine trouble, he had a horrible dream about a bloated, slimy guy.  That was about it for night one.

    So, after night one, I started to get that old feeling back.  Leading up to it, and while I was going over various rules and concepts with Brad, I was pretty darned nervous and unsure.  It had been so long, and I felt so out of practice.  But as the night drew to a close, I could sort of sense the mental muscles again, feel them flexing.  Not just the storytelling muscles.  I use those a lot.  But the improvisational and preparedness muscles.

    Something I like about using Call of Cthulhu as an introductory game is that, beyond the game mechanics being fairly intuitive and not to difficult to teach, the game is also set up to be potentially brutally fatal to characters.  This means that one need not invest a lot of time and energy into the creation of a character, because they might not make it too long.  This means that, if you end up not liking how your character works during actual gameplay, it probably won’t be too long before you can make a new one, with a better handle on the game.  I don’t think that’ll be a problem for Brad, as his first character seems solid, especially for what he’s going to face.  Not to say he won’t get bumped off quickly.  He seems to have the needed skills to get into the right kinds of trouble.

    I’m feeling better in general, having finally started.  Sure, it wasn’t much.  Just a taste, really.  But it’s a start, and I’m ready for more.

    So, tonight I’m getting down to the brass tacks of setting up the next game.  Rough drawn map of the ship (boat?), list of the crew with a few important stats, and a few interesting events, all added to the idea I already had.  I’m picking out mood music.  I used some radio hits from 1929 during character creation.  But I’m thinking for the actual story, maybe something a bit more somber.  Maybe I need to get out and buy some candles?  We’ll see.

    After talking to Brad, I think that maybe introducing his wife to gaming also using Call of Cthulhu might be a good idea.  So, we’ll see how this next night goes.  Depending, I could put together a follow-up scenario, or if Paulie doesn’t survive, something totally unrelated.  And I’m putting together a new list of potential games I might run in the future, with some brief descriptions to see which ones might be of interest.

    So, finally, if only in a small way, I’m back.  And it feels good.

-Matt